Raising a Reader is a non-credit course aimed at parents and caregivers who want to infuse a love of reading and books into their children’s lives. Preschool teachers and home daycare providers may also enjoy this course.

Topics covered in Raising a Reader include: reaching a wide range of learning styles; early literacy skills; book selection; overview of genres and types of children’s books; anatomy of a picture book; putting together a diverse and rich home library; boosting literacy skills during read-aloud; and engaging reluctant readers of all ages.

Participants will also come away with literacy resources, book lists, and on-line resources. Raising a Reader is open to the community (participants do not need to be registered college students or college graduates).

It’s going to be fun! Register here. GOOD NEWS: Bridgewater-Cape Cod has just announced a “bring a friend” special. Register for the class ($149) and you can bring a friend. You can split the cost!

Author and educator Mary E. Cronin teaches Early Childhood Education, Children’s Literature, and Creative Writing at a wide array of institutions including Cape Cod Community College, Bridgewater State University, Barnstable County Correctional Facility, Cape Cod Lighthouse Charter School, and more. Mary is a passionate advocate for children’s literacy and the joy of reading. Read more about her at www.maryecronin.com, or on Twitter at @maryecronin.

Like a plane coming in for a landing, I am settling back in to work and writing after the excitement of the holidays and a January trip to Ireland. Thanks to local arts funding, I will be teaching a new version of my creative writing class in the women’s unit of the Barnstable County Correctional Facility here on Cape Cod, and I’m very excited!

Here’s the description:

Mary E. Cronin will lead a ten-week writing workshop, “Connecting Through Kids’ Books,” in the women’s unit of Barnstable County Correctional Facility, where 80% of the female inmates are mothers. In each 90-minute session, Mary will bring a children’s book, which will be read aloud and used as a creative writing prompt. As participants appreciate and write about children’s books, they will improve their own literacy, become newly aware of the power of reading aloud, and add to their parenting skills in anticipation of their release and reunion with their children.

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It’s been well-documented that when parents are incarcerated, it places enormous stress on their children, impacting child development and the parent-child relationship. Connecting Through Kids’ Books: A Prison Writing Project aims to address those needs on several levels.

First, it will boost the literacy skills of the adult participants by sparking appreciation of high-quality children’s books, building vocabulary, and strengthening writing skills through creative writing.

Second, the program will bolster parenting skills by giving participants a window into the joy and stimulation that children’s books can provide, especially if they themselves were not read to as children. Connecting through Kids’ Books also will give the women an awareness of titles they can read to their children once they are released from prison, and appreciation for the access that the public library can provide.

One of the books we’ll be reading and writing about

I’m thrilled that two Local Cultural Councils from Cape Cod have supported this project, and I’ll keep you posted on how it goes. It starts next week!

I was shaken recently when a friend relayed a story from a school in my liberal state of Massachusetts: an 8th grader received an anonymous note at school, to the effect of “Faggot- hope you kill yourself.”

In my writer world, I admit I get lulled into a sense of security– look at the praise heaped on books like Alex Gino’s GEORGE and Tim Federle’s BETTER NATE THAN EVER! Things are better. So much better!

In my adult world, as an out lesbian, I sometimes forget how hard it is to come out, to BE out, to risk safety and relationships to bewho you are.

That story of the 8th grader reminded me. Not so fast. We have more work to do. More books to write. This is what drives me to write my current novel, Tomfoolery, about a boy who is trying to muster the courage to be who he is.

I’m still buzzing from a dynamic weekend in NYC. I saw family, covered a lot of ground (Bronx to the Battery!), and attended the Rutgers One-on-One Conference.

The Rutgers One-on-One conference is a different kind of conference: it feels very focused, very professional. Writers must submit their work and an essay in order to be accepted, and an equal number of industry professionals are invited. I was paired up with an energetic agent named Carrie Pestritto from Prospect Agency, and she had insightful things to say about my novel pages, my query letter, my list of next projects, and more. What a dynamo she is!

I’m here in this crowd, taking it all in at the Rutgers One-on-One.

I met several other wonderful writers, editors and agents during the day, and I left feeling very directed, energized, and sure that I am on the right path with my current work, my middle-grade novel Tomfoolery.

With my daughter Rose, I also hit a few spots in NYC that I have been meaning to get to: the Poets House and the Irish Famine Memorial in Battery Park. For a college paper, Rose interviewed author and educator Zetta Elliott about the need for more diversity in children’s literature… and I got to pop in at the end and meet Zetta, too!

With my cousin, I went up to the borough I was born in, the Bronx. We stopped by the church where her and my parents were married, St. Luke’s in the South Bronx (where I teach a poetry workshop once a year)– now home to a new generation of immigrants from Ghana. We marveled at the way that St. Luke’s has always welcomed and educated immigrants– children of Irish immigrants like our parents, children of immigrants from Africa and Latin America now. We also stopped by the new Bronx Brewery and sampled micro-brews… right in the South Bronx! Who knew!

Bronx Brewery in the South Bronx

Now I am back on quiet Cape Cod, ready to dive into my novel and polish it up. My heart and head were filled to the brim on my trip… now it’s time to settle in and get this novel ready to send!

Learning about gender: that was one of my summer reading goals as a children’s writer, a teacher of teachers, and a creative writing instructor. As a lesbian writer and supporter of We Need Diverse Books, I am always on the look-out for new titles to recommend. Two books on my summer reading list have stayed with me.

Middle-grade novel GEORGE by Alex Gino brought me inside the mind and heart of a transgendered child– fourth grader George, who sees herself as Melissa. George yearns to play Charlotte in the school production of “Charlotte’s Web,” and she figures that will be a perfect vehicle for telling her mother and others that she really is a girl, despite being born in a boy’s body. GEORGE is chock full of heart and humor. Within the past few months, I’ve talked to teachers who are figuring out how to best respond to students who identify as transgendered… students ranging in age from preschool to middle school. Teachers, start with GEORGE. Feed your brain with information for allies, statistics and studies… but GEORGE will feed your heart.

Young adult novel NONE OF THE ABOVE, by I. W. Gregorio, taught me so much about the experience of being intersex. Main character Kristin is diagnosed with an intersex condition, and she worries that it means she’s “not exactly a girl.” This book made me think so much about the “either/or” gender dichotomy so prevalent in our world, and how that traps so many kids who feel different or gender variant in some way. There is so much information conveyed gracefully in this book; while I was learning about the intersex experience, I fretted over Kristin’s worries about peer reactions, medical issues, implications for her romantic/sex life, and her future. For teachers wondering about the “I” in LGBTQIA– this is your book!

Now I am back in the groove of juggling teaching, tutoring, writing… but I feel enriched and refreshed by my summer reading, and these two titles still resonate long after I read them under my beach umbrella.

Have you heard about Rainbow Boxes? It’s a way to get sorely needed books into the hands of LGBTQ+ youth.

Flashback to a scene in a middle school library about six years ago: the school counselor, who happens to be my wife, was showing me the section in the library where the books on sexuality could be found. Included in the collection were a few books referencing gay and lesbian youth. Except you could never find them, she said, because kids would covertly take the books, read them furtively in the far corners of the library, and stick them back into a random shelf when they were done.

So much has changed since then!

First, my wife wrote a grant and her school library now has a full collection of GLBTQ+ books. Plus, there is a middle school GSA (now called GSE, for Gender, Sexuality and Equality). There is more openness, inclusion, conversation– at the school level and in our country as a whole!

But that’s just one school, with some progressive leadership, on Cape Cod. There are so many schools that don’t have those resources. YA authors Amy Rose Capetta and Cori McCarthy are aiming to fill that need with their genius idea called Rainbow Boxes, which are boxes filled with books about GLBTQ+ characters. These books, funded by an Indiegogo campaign, will be sent to every state in the union (to one school and one shelter)– if the project reaches full funding! This project goes hand-in-hand with the We Need Diverse Books mission.

I’ve made my contribution. Will you kick in a few dollars, for kids who need to see themselves represented realistically and positively in a book? And check out their book list (on the Indiegogo page) for some fantastic summer reading.

As a teacher on summer hiatus, I’m grabbing all of the free hours I can muster, running as far and fast as I can with my middle-grade novel-in-progress, Tomfoolery. And the other day, the stars aligned to tell me, “Yes! Keep going. You are moving in the right direction!”

You see, my main character Tom’s world is being rocked by taking part in an art class in beautiful Provincetown. Suddenly, as a gay/questioning, artsy kid, he doesn’t feel so alone– he has found his people.

Provincetown

I wrote a scene the other day in which the art teacher referenced ballerina Misty Copeland. In response to someone using the term “firebird,” the teacher shows an image of Copeland leaping mid-air in flaming red regalia. I wrote some dialog from the teacher:

“Misty Copeland,” Will pointed. “African American soloist with the American Ballet Theater. Most famous role: Stravinsky’s Firebird.”

Misty Copeland

Finished with my writing time, I clicked on over to Facebook for some social interaction, and there on the headlines was Misty Copeland: newly-named as the first African American principal dancer with the American Ballet Theater. I immediately went back to my manuscript and made that change!

In the middle of my novel, where my gay/questioning character feels a bit at sea, a bit too “different,” I had introduced an example of another artist who has also had experiences of feeling at sea, and different. And then, there she was, like a Firebird, soaring. Inspiring my character, inspiring me.

The stars aligned, in a little way– but it was enough for me. To keep me going, when I feel a bit at sea in the writing process.